I shit on your romanticized
Hollywood fantasies
of a sanitized,
White Protestant
America,
where everyone
had their place,
and they knew it
and they kept there
and they were happy.

Their mythology comforts
for there is
no conflict,
no desperate, hungry pleas
to distract
The Exceptional, Chosen Americans
from their enviable dreams.

I’m an American
and my country
needs me,
and the rest of us
who have been left out
on the sidelines,
in the boiling kitchens,
under punishing sunlight
in the fields,
wiping the asses
of the royal offspring
of the rich and pampered,

to register
and vote,
vote,
vote.

Don’t let them
“Make America Great Again”
because we know
where that led us.

Thursday, July 07, 2016

“First, she told me
her name was Ashley.
The next time
it was Brandee,
and then,
it was Millicent.

She was young
and firm
and flexible,

with clear blue eyes,
and a nape made
for her
long
blonde
hair.

I kept feeding
her singles
and she ate
like a dirty city pigeon,
out of my hand.

I‘d have her lean in
as I pretended to listen
over the mix of
rap-metal
and classic rock,
but I was actually
breathing in her
heady mixture of
stage perfume and
overpriced alcohol.

I learned
she dropped out
of school when
she got pregnant.

She told me
she had the kid,
and a pimp,
and a coke habit,
as she slid her
lingerie’d torso
up against mine,
straddling me
during one of the
many table dances
she performed
under those predictable
red and purple
pin lights.

And I wanted
to rescue her,
to take her away
from all that decay,
to tell her
I loved her
and that I would
always take care
of her,

Saturday, July 02, 2016

should I sit at the keyboard
bending thought and word
weighing simile and metaphor,
vainly trying to scratch out
a hitherto unheard phrase
on the off chance
that some anonymous reader
might comment positively
and feed my voracious appetite
for approbation and
self-aggrandizement,

or

watch another episode
of “Curb your Enthusiasm”
sitting next to
the most beautiful woman
I’ve ever seen
and feel the
comforting glow
that only comes
from finally knowing
true love?